Laminated insole for welt shoes



April 10, 1951 s. L. KATz LAMINATED INsoLE FOR wEL'r sHoEs Filed oct. 1'5. 1947 Patented Apr. 10, 1951 UNITED STATES PATENTOFFICE 1 Claim.

' This invention comprises a new and improved laminated cushion insole for Welt shoes.

The general object of the invention is to provide for a welt shoe having great exibility in its forepart and a completely cushioned bottom beneath the foot of the wearer, all without substantially increasing either the weight or the manufacturing expense of the shoe.

It will be appreciated that in leather and fabric welt shoes as heretofore constructed the forepart of the shoe has always had a tendency toward stiffness because of the multiply effect arising from the laminated sections of the insole and outsole, even though vthese are partially separated bya narrow band of ller. In other words, when a moderately exible insole and a moderately exible outsole are assembled in a welt shoe bottom the resulting structure is very greatly stiffer than either of its components.

I have discovered that when a moderately exible insole is provided, on the face toward the outsole, with a ply or facing vof cushion material which will yield readily in compression, then, under those conditions, the multiply effect is dissipated and a bottom structure results that has an unexpected and highly desirable degree of flexibility. This construction does not interfere in any way with the use of a metal shank stilener in the shank of the shoe with the result that no departure is required from the usually practiced steps of welt shoe making beyond the furnishing of the novel insole carrying a cushion ply on its ribbed face.

An important advantage that ows from the employment of the welt insole of my invention is that the wearer is given a-cushion throughout the entire length of the shoe, not only in the flexible forepart of the insole but also in the rigid shank portion where the cushion ply will be interposed between the steel shank stiffener and the foot. Thus the comfort of the weareris improved in these two significant respects.

and pressure released the cushion layer will expand and reduce the effective size of the shoe.

This di'iculty is avoided in accordance with my Y invention by locating the cushion ply on the outer face of the insole, so that any tendency of the cushion ply to expand is taken up outside the area of the last and no reduction in size of the shoe takes place.

These and other features and advantages of the invention will be best understood and appreciated from the following description of preferred embodiments thereof, selected for purposes of illustration and shown in the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a view in perspective of the leather insole blank,

Fig. 2 is a similar View of the cushion ply,

Fig. 3 is a similar view showing the two blanks united,

Fig. 4 is a plan'view of a complete insole,

Fig. 5 is a-plan view of an insole of alternative construction,

Figs. 6 and '7 are sectional views on the lines 6 6 and I-'I of Figs. 4 and 5,

Fig. 8 lis a sectional view through the forepart of the completed welt shoe, and

Fig. 9 is a corresponding view of the shank portion.

An insole blank IG may be died or rounded from sole leather split or cut from any other selected moderately flexible insle stock of leather or composition, this being the ply of the insole seen inside the iinished shoe. A blank II of cork composition or other suitable cushion material may be similarly prepared and these two plys united permanently in continuous faceto-face contact by cement I2 as lsuggested in Fig. 3. If a grain split is used in the blank I0 its smooth or grain face is exposed in the insole and its split or rough face is covered by the cushion ply.

The welt sewing rib is now applied to the exposed face of the cushion ply I I as, for example, bythe socalled"Prime process suggested in Fig'. 4, by presenting simultaneously a rectangular strip of Ycore material I3 and an adhesive strip of tape I4. This may be done accurately and rapidly by machinery already available for that purpose, the tape being stuck firmly to the surface of the cushion ply II and set with therib at substantially right angles to the body of the insole, or inclined slightly inwardly, and at a predetermined distance from the marginal edge of the insole, extending from the heel breast line on one Vside of the sole to a corresponding point on the other side of the sole.

Any form of attached sewing rib may be used within the scope of my invention, an alternative construction being shown in Figs` 5 and 7. In that instance the core I3 is covered by an adhesive sheet I5 of Gem Duck or the like. This takes the place of the tape I4 and extends continuously in bonded relation from edge to edge of the insole, being set as before with rib in substantially upright position. Figs. 4 and 5 therefore illustrate two illustrative embodiments of my novel insole, complete and ready ior use in the production of welt shoes.

In manufacturing a shoe the welt insole is temporarily tacked and thus conformed tothe bottom of the last with its ribbed face outermost and then the upper, for example, the lined upper i6, is lasted in over the feather of the insole. It is eventually secured to the sewing rib, together with the welt II, by the stitches f8 of the inseam. The cushion ply ll is exposed up to this stage of the shoemaking but that is now covered by a layer of the usual bottom filler which eX- tends over the space between the sewing ribs of the insole.

Priol` to the bottom iilling step a. steel shank stirfener 20 is attached to the exposed cushion face of the insole. This stiener extends usually from the ball line to a point behind the heel breast line and renders the finished shoe substantially rigid throughout its shank portion. it is covered or partially covered by the bottom iiller I9 as indicated in Fig. 9.

In completing the shoe an outsole 2| is laid and leveled upon the lled insole and attached by the usual lock-stitch outseam 22 to the welt l'l. It will be apparent by reference to Fig. 8 that the cushion ply ii extends continuously beneath the leather ply it, separating it by a compressible layer from unyielding Contact with the welt and the underlying outsole and substantially increasing the cushioning effect of the bottom iiller i9 where that isinterposed between the insole and outsole. rihus any multiply stiitening eiect is broken up or vdissipated-and an extremely flexible bottom secured.

If preferred, the adhesive sheet l5 shown in Figs. 5 and 7 may supplement the tape I4 Which forms the rib shown in Figs. 4 and 6, and in that 'i case the sheet 1will be cemented across the inner margin of the insole from rib to rib and then trimmed oi even with the top surface of the rib. I have found it generally advisable in using an adhesive rib to employ gem duck continuously from rib to rib to give lateral stability to the rib and insure good shoemaking and wear.

One of the problems which may sometimes occur in the process herein disclosed of manufacturing Goodyear welt shoes using the cushion Welt insole is the necessity for having rm adhesion of the Various units that go to make up the completed insolethat is, the laminated layers of insoling, cushion material, Welt sewing rib and rib reinforcing material. It is very important that all these units be combined rmly without affecting their exibility. Thus far, it has been found possible to use the regular cements normally available in the trade for applying the rib to an insole and for cementing gem duck to reinforce the rib.

However, in the event that these materials should be found not suiciently strong in their adhesion qualities, it is entirely practicable to use a cold vulcanizing cement in joining the insole layer 'with the cushion layer of the insole and in cementing on the rib and the gem duck reinforcement of the rib.

. The nature of this cement is such that in the absence of any heat treatment of the materials that have been stuck together, but after an interval of time, the full benefit of the vulcanizing process could be eiective. At the end of this time, these units would be so stuck together that the body of any one of them would have to be distorted or destroyed in the process of trying to pull them apart. This type of cement, even when treated with heat, does not reduce the flexibility of the units in which it is applied, but merely serves as a very strong sticking agent.

Having thus disclosed my invention and described in detail certain illustrative embodiments thereof, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

A prepared laminated insole for use with welt shoes of leather or fabric, said insole consisting oi a fuli length ply of fibrous material, an allover cushion ply of cork composition which is inherently resilient and twill yield readily to compression and is permanently united in continuous iace-to-face contact to the fibrous ply, a sewing rib disposed in direct contact with the cushion ply, and securing means comprising a covering of fabric adhesively attached to the rib and to the face of the cushion ply on both sides of the rib.

SAUL L. KATZ.

REFERENCES CTED The following references are of record in the hie of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 712,437 Schermerhorn Oct. 28, 1902 1,217,708 Clayton Feb. 27, 1917 1,937,678 White Dec. 5, 1933 1,998,125 Eno Apr. 16, 1935 2,052,002 Poole Aug. 25, 1936 2,224,590 Boivin Dec. 10, 1940 2,387,710 Ayers Oct. 30, 1945 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 171,019 Switzerland Aug. 15, 1934 

